a polymath zapper

a polymath zapper

Custmm Grumm

Another experiment towards Custmm Grumm. This time my task was to export/import an Illustrator file to Flash…

Yeah, yeah; I know: you say “import to stage” … correct! 😉
But what I need is the shape converted to code (coordinates in the x-direction and y-direction)..
Ha, you stopped grinning!

Well the first part is correct.
You need to import the file to the stage and give every imported shape it’s own layer.
This is something that you don’t want to do by hand (I didn’t want to 😉 ), so I wrote a jsfl that fixes that for you (read my post about it here: object-to-layer-jsfl)

After that you need to extract the values (x and y-positions form the corners of the shapes) of the files. Some thing, you don’t want that to do by hand: I have written a jsfl who does that. (read more about that here: shape-2-array-jsfl )

If you use these two scripts, you get: all imported shapes in different layers, and you can extract all values.
Example of the array:
[as]
var shapeArrayz:Array = new Array ();
shapeArrayz[0] = [[20.05,169.5,0] , [62.425,169.5,1] , [104.8,169.5,2] , [104.8,169.5,0] , [104.8,211.85,1] , [104.8,254.2,2] , [104.8,254.2,0] , [62.425,254.2,1] , [20.05,254.2,2] , [20.05,254.2,0] , [20.05,211.85,1] , [20.05,169.5,2]];
// etc…
[/as]
This array off point can be used to generate the shape you just “traced”.

–

This script (below) is used to generate the points (every line has 3 points, the beginning, the end and one inbetween), and the generated shape on the right side (no points, only the shape):
[as]
var shapeArray:Array = [];

This will be my most ambitious project in my spare time: Custmm Grumm!

What is Custmm Grumm?

When I created Grumm, I had no plans with the moody fellow. But after I got invited to participate in a book about papertoys I started to think about the future of papertoys (and Grumm).

Two of those thoughts about the future is the base of this project: you should be able to modify/create a papermodel without expensive software or specialized knowledge.

Papertoys are, more then vinyl toys, difficult to customize. You need knowledge of image or vector programs link Photoshop or Illustrator. Besides the knowledge of these programs, you also need the program them selfs, which is not cheap. Another bump in customizing is the flat version of the model: the simple papertoys are not that difficult to understand, but the more complex models with more parts, it’s difficult to know which part goes where and how it will look.
It would be nice that you could create a custom skin and modify the model yourself.

Creating a custom skin for a model is done before: papercritters but modifying the model to isn’t.

I will try to make Custmm Grumm in Flash (AS3) so that it’s possible to create a custom skin and modify the model (with some restrictions of course)…

I had a discussion about this project on Nice Paper Toys if you want to know some more about the rocky start of this project.